


Don't Let Me Drown

by Fangirlxwritesx67



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29094645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlxwritesx67/pseuds/Fangirlxwritesx67
Summary: A Winchester Brother’s genfic1650 words, no pairing (codependant brothers, no Wincest.)Song: Head Above Water, Avril LavigneTW: mental health issues, depression, suicidal thoughts, discussion of canon torture, blood and self-harm.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Kudos: 1





	Don't Let Me Drown

Drowning, he was drowning.

No, that wasn’t the right word. Drowning implied some kind of struggle, some kind of effort to not-drown. He was somewhere past that, succumbing to the gravity of the ocean, sinking into its watery embrace. 

His whole life he had wondered what would happen if he just stopped fighting, if he just gave in and let his lungs fill with water. It stung, for a little bit, but it seemed right. And he gave up reaching for the surface as he sank out of reach of the light.

***  
Sam Winchester sat bolt upright, gasping for breath. It was a nightmare, nothing more. He looked to the clock on his nightstand. 

Three a.m. Nightmares always came at three a.m. 

He coughed, the weight on his chest as real as if his lungs really had been filled with water. His breath was ragged, burning, but it was all air. After a long time he laid back on the bed, eyes wide open for another sleepless night. 

*******

Weeping endures for a night but joy comes in the morning.

The line echoed in Sam’s sleep fogged brain, making a mockery of the heaviness that he still carried, the same burden he had taken to bed. After some thought, he recalled it was from the Jewish Psalms, something he had read in research. But this morning was just as joyless as the night before. His chaotic sleep blurred the lines between dark and light. 

“Hey, how are ya?” Dean greeted Sam cheerfully when he stumbled into the bunker kitchen. “Have some coffee!” 

Sam poured himself a mug and settled across the table from Dean. He winced as he gulped the too-hot drink, not even tasting it. 

“You okay, man?” Dean’s words seemed to come from far away, and it took even longer for Sam to formulate a response. 

“Yeah,” he finally managed. It sounded unconvincing, even to him.

Lately, every day was like this - like being underwater, other people’s words taking so long to get through. By the time they reached him, they had filtered through so many layers of doubt and darkness that he wasn’t even sure he had heard correctly. 

Responding, the effort he had to go through to make a ripple on the surface, was even harder than listening when he was so deep in the water. He felt like he was flailing, screaming, fighting for his very life, while the world passed by without noticing.

Dean saw that something was wong. How could he not? But the brothers were good at everything except talking about their feelings. 

“Are you okay?” Dean would ask, unable to speak the words Sam knew he meant: I care, I see that you’re hurting, I worry about you.

“I’m fine.” Sam would respond, the question and answer as familiar as a song after all these years.

But he was the farthest thing from fine. 

He was far away from everything, every emotion, every word, every spark of light. He would say that he was numb, except it hurt. It hurt in every joint, every muscle, every movement. It hurt every time he opened his mouth to gasp for air and filled his lungs with water instead. 

***

Sometimes he mocked himself. After all, he was Sam Winchester. He had been through hell, through torture. For the first time in a long time, he had a home, a safe place, a refuge where he and his brother could retreat. 

And now he was falling apart.

He had withstood Lucifer but couldn’t hold out against drowning in the everyday. There was something visceral and true about the blood, the chains, the fire. He thought about harming himself, drawing blood. He wondered if making his suffering visible in his body would help it hurt less.

***  
Sam took to sleeping with a gun under his pillow, one warded to kill angels and demons and all kinds of monsters. Who knew, any more, what he really was? It was there for him to hold, to handle. He felt its weight, its potential for destruction, like a promise. 

He couldn’t say which was worse, day or night. All day he had to pretend things were okay, when they very much were not. He tried to drum up the words and emotions that he knew were expected of him. It took so much energy simply to get by.

He tried to bury himself in research, seeking solace in his books. But reading required a level of concentration he couldn’t sustain. Try as he might, the sparks of insight and connection that made learning enjoyable stayed dim. 

At least at night it was quiet, and he was alone. So very, very alone, just him and his thoughts, crashing over and over on the shore of his consciousness: failure, shame, worry. All the while the riptide of loss pulled him farther and farther into deep dark waters. 

Even when he finally drifted into sleep, there was no rest. His dreams were full of fire and blood, and he woke every day more tired than before. 

Waking up was probably the worst, clawing his way up from the depths of his nightmares, coming to terms with the dread of reality. Some mornings he spent almost an hour just sitting on the side of his bed, staring blankly at the grey walls, trying to summon the strength to stand up and survive another day.

He waited every day for night, to fall into the blissful embrace of sleep. Instead he found only more blackness.

***

It was impossible to say what led him to pull the gun out one day in the middle of the afternoon. There was no one thing, just the crushing cumulative weight of the burden he carried. The hopelessness, that was the worst, the sense of unending doom, of no hope in sight. 

Oblivion seemed better. 

He was tired, so tired, of drawing breath and getting no air, of looking up and seeing no light. He was tired of reaching out for help and his fingers closing on nothing. He was sitting on the bed, turning the gun over and over in his hands, just contemplating his options.

The door swung open suddenly. 

“Sam,” Dean spoke his name as he stepped into the room. Brothers never bothered to knock. “Oh, no, Sam!” 

In a few swift steps, Dean closed the distance between them. He held out his hand as he approached Sam. 

“Please.” 

Sam let go, yielding the weight of the gun on his open palm. Dean swiftly unloaded it before turning to shove it across the floor, far away. He knelt in front of his younger brother, opening his arms. Sam slipped off the bed into his embrace, and together the brothers sank to the floor in a desperate grasping tangle of arms and legs.

“Dean,” Sam whispered raggedly into the crook of his neck. “Don’t let me drown.” 

“Shh, you’re in the bunker, you’re safe here, I’m with you, it’s okay.” 

Sam shook his head as he sagged against his older brother’s embrace. “I feel like I can’t keep my head above water. It just gets harder and harder. I can’t, any more.” 

***  
After Dean locked the gun away, he dragged Sam with him into the kitchen. Sam sat at the table while Dean prepared tea, and macaroni and cheese. Then he sat down, watching to make sure his brother was adequately fed and hydrated. 

He thankfully didn’t ask any questions, didn’t force his younger brother to scramble for answers.

After dinner, the two of them went to the Dean Cave and watched Scooby Doo in companionable silence until it was an acceptable time for bed. 

The two of them hadn’t shared a bed in decades, not since they had stopped hunting with their dad and spending the night in cheap motels, but that night, Dean crawled under the covers next to Sam. 

The even rhythm of his brother’s breathing was unexpectedly soothing for Sam. As he began to drift off, he did something he had stopped in grade school, reaching out for Dean with one pinkie. Dean responded the same way, and they fell asleep together, comforted by the lightest of touches.

***

Drowning, he was drowning, and had been for a long time.

But tonight was different, there were the barest glimpses of light. His water-logged chest felt a spark of something new; was it hope? 

He struggled, he fought, not knowing if he wanted to sink or swim, just knowing for the first time in a long time that his life was worth fighting for. He flailed, with everything he had, seeing anything solid, anything — 

“Fuck, Sammy!” Dean’s voice jolted him awake. He was holding Sam, pinning his hands down, but not before an errant palm had apparently connected with Dean’s face. His nose was bleeding all over the bedding. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Sam was babbling, breathless, still a little scared. 

Dean wiped his face. “Dude. just a bloody nose. I’m okay. Are you okay?” 

Sam lifted his head and looked his brother in the eye. He felt like the ocean had taken in him, held him down, and tumbled him around. But at long last, mercifully, she had tossed him back out on the shore. 

He lay in the surf, battered and bruised, still spitting salt water and gasping for breath. But as he reached up, he took his brother’s hand. 

***

“I can’t breathe, sometimes,” he murmured. 

“I’ll always meet you there,” Dean answered.

He could keep his head above water, with Dean by his side. He could always keep fighting.

“Don’t let me drown.”

In the dark, his brother wrapped him in an embrace that left no doubt.   
***


End file.
